


A Strange Feeling of Regret

by plumedy



Category: Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Handcuffed Together, Hurt/Comfort, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 12:41:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5456858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumedy/pseuds/plumedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being handcuffed to each other turns out to have a lot of downsides and one unexpected upside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Strange Feeling of Regret

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pasiphile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasiphile/gifts).



“Get yourself over here,” he whispered urgently. His long fingers brushed against mine, tensing in a gesture of impatience.

It was dark on the lower deck and the floor was swaying softly under our feet. The air was close and smelt like sea salt and spices.

We were handcuffed together over a tall wooden partition, its height barely enough for me not to stand on tiptoe. Bell had it a little easier, but I was sure his bad leg must be cramping, and it was clearly not improving his mood.

I assessed my chances of climbing over the partition without risking an injury to his hand. Perhaps if I stepped on that brass ring sticking out of the wood? It must’ve normally been used for holding the cargo in place, and as such it had to be fairly solid.

I took a deep breath, rested my foot against the ring, gripped the top of the partition with my free hand, and swung myself up.

For a moment I was balancing awkwardly on the edge, feeling rather like a big overturned snow crab. Then I fell, dragging him to the floor with me.

We both landed on our knees, facing each other, uncomfortably close. He was still wincing at the impact, his face pinched with pain, and even in the dim light of the swinging ship lanterns his expression clearly reflected his displeasure at the fact that I got to see him like that.

He sprang to his feet. I, too, stumbled into a more vertical position, finding myself between him and the massive polished wooden door. Pushing it yielded no result; it was locked fast.

Another problem had now become obvious: though my other hand was free, the same couldn’t be said of Bell’s. As well as being handcuffed to me, he was restrained by a short chain attached to one of the brass rings in the opposite wall and wrapped around both of his wrists. Our captor must’ve judged him to be the more dangerous opponent and taken additional measures to prevent his escape.

He caught my eye.

“Yes, Doyle. These chains are tight, and my hands have gone so numb I couldn’t pick up a glass of water, let alone pick a lock. This time you’ll have to manage on your own." He smiled at me, an odd sharp, unhappy smile, though with a hint of encouragement I was glad of. "Let's see how much use my lessons were." He bent a little, forcing me to bend with him, and pulled something thin and long out of the heel of his black leather boot.

“Come closer.” I complied, and he handed me a small razor blade with cotton cloth wrapped around one end. It gleamed dully, almost yellow with the thick light of burning whale oil. “I will guide you through this. Do not proceed without my instruction.”

I nodded mutely, though his seeming mistrust had rankled me more than I cared to admit. Now’s not the time to argue, I reminded myself. And he is in pain.

Everything went smoothly. Picking a lock in the dark with a razor blade is not an exercise I would care to repeat any more than I would care to juggle a dozen live cats; but the Doctor, feeling once more in his element, was speaking to me in a deep and measured voice, and my fingers remembered the required movements before I could remember them myself.

Then the direction which I turned the pick in proved to be wrong. It was one of those rare locks which actually require the key to be turned to the right, not to the left. The pins of the lock clattered against the cylinder, falling back into their places. It was silence after that, and I was painfully aware of the splashing of the waves against the side of the ship; of the high-pitched song of the breeze. I strained my ears but, to my relief, there were no other sounds - no footsteps on the upper deck.

I seemed to hear Bell’s breathing speed up with barely controlled annoyance.

“We’ll have to repeat that,” he whispered curtly. “That is highly unfortunate, Doyle."

An unnecessary comment if ever there was one. And his tone was too much. I felt something hot rise at the back of my throat, and the next moment I knew, I was standing right in front of him, gripping his hand painfully.

“That is quite enough,” I hissed. “You have got us both into this, Doctor. Now have the decency to concentrate on our escape instead of blaming me for things that are no fault of mine.”

I could feel his fingers twitch, as if in a weak, aborted attempt to wrestle away from me. It would in any case - seeing as we were handcuffed together - have been quite futile; but something about this small motion alleviated my anger. I was already regretting my harsh words. The blow was much too low. As if I didn’t voluntarily go with him, or as if I wasn’t aware of the risks!

And now that I could once again see his face, I realized how distressed he was by all this - how he hated to depend upon someone else to do all the work; to allow me to see his weakness. I felt a sharp pang.

“Look, Bell, I’m sorry,” I began, slowly releasing his hand.

“And I,” he interrupted. He was pale, his lips compressed tightly. “I should not have- but that’s for later. Let’s get back to that lock.”

We repeated the process. This time, his instruction was barely needed; but I let him talk to stop him from fretting. After some five minutes I heard a satisfying soft click, and the well-oiled cylinder turned silently. The door creaked open.

“Well done,” whispered he.

I turned round and gave his chain an experimental tug. The brass ring seemed solid, but I felt that it sat in the wood a little loosely. Perhaps this whaler had recently been in a storm and the cargo was thrown about.

I dug my heels into the floorboards and pulled as hard as I could. The old wood gave a plaintive creak and finally snapped, slivers flying. The ring fell to the floor with a loud metallic clatter.

“There we go,” I pronounced with some satisfaction and picked it up, reasoning that Bell was hardly fit to carry it.

Silently we crept up the steep staircase leading to the upper deck. At last, the air was fresh and pure blue starlight filled our tired eyes. For a few moments we simply stood there, breathing. It occurred to me, incongruously, that we must look ridiculous: we were still joined at the wrists, but now I was holding one end of Bell’s chain like some sort of grotesque parody of a prison guard.

“What now?” sighed I. “We’re certainly not jumping overboard with this chain. We’ll drown before you can say ‘deductive reasoning’.”

The awkward joke did exactly what it was designed to do - make him smile. But the problem demanded immediate attention; the chain, attached directly to his handcuff, presented a formidable obstacle to our escape. It looked as if I would have to try to pick the handcuff lock with one hand. This was much more doable now than in the twilight of the lower deck, but time was desperately short and I was afraid that our earlier exercitations might’ve woken the crew.

Still, I supposed there was not much choice.

“I have a smaller pick in my back pocket,” Bell murmured, guessing my thoughts. “Take it.”

To reach his back pocket, I had to all but embrace him. He stood still, waiting patiently as I fumbled with his coat, my chin resting against his collarbone. It was every bit as damned awkward as it sounds, and I was silently apologizing to him all the way through.

It was just when I finally got hold of the smooth cold curve of the pick that I saw dark silhouettes in the cold haze at the opposite end of the deck. Four or five people were walking slowly towards us, still oblivious to our presence, but closer with every step, their voices loud.

The Doctor heard them, too.

“No time for lockpicking,” he said in my ear.

“Then what?”

He nudged my ribs gently, indicating that I turn. I whirled round; and my eye fell on the small wood-cutting axe strapped to the wall of the cockpit.

I could feel my face blanch. But Bell made a couple of steps forward, bringing us within the reach of the axe.

My hand was clammy when I gripped the handle. The Doctor stood on his knees, placed his chained hands on the cockpit hatch, and nodded at me.

Someone laughed shrilly behind my back. A hundred yards - less? They were bound to see us soon, and then we would be right back where we started.

What if the axe slipped? I looked at his hands - his nimble surgeon’s hands, his profession, his life.

He lifted his head and caught my gaze. I nearly squeezed my eyes shut at the sheer trust written on his face, all the more striking after his earlier distress. The corners of his mouth hitched up a little.

“Go ahead, Doyle,” he said, in a low voice. “Do your worst.”

I struck. The chain shattered, and the axe went deep into the wood. My head swimming, I hastily hauled the Doctor to his feet and stepped up onto the bulwark. There was shouting close behind, and I seemed to hear a pistol shot.

Still handcuffed together, we simultaneously plunged into the cold darkness.

For a while we hid in the shadow of the ship. Only when we heard a boat being let down and saw it head towards the shore did we turn to swim in the same direction. Now we could take our time while our confused pursuers searched the crowded wharf.

It was a little more than half a mile to the quay. I could make it without much effort, though the water was a little too cold for my liking; but after some five hundred feet I noticed that the Doctor was more than slightly out of breath. When I turned to face him, he looked pale, and his lips were bluish. A small surge of alarm ran through my body, and I quickened my pace.

After another five hundred feet, when we reached the remains of a half-sunken stone pier, he clung onto them, handed me the razor blade, which he had somehow managed to hold on to, and demanded that I pick the handcuff lock.

“No,” I said, yanking at our shared chain rudely. “Do you hear? I will not allow this.”

He protested this statement fiercely, but I responded by throwing the blade away. It sank without a sound, swallowed by the waves.

When a little more than two hundred feet remained, he lost consciousness.

 

It later transpired that we had been found by a couple of local fishermen, who were most certainly not expecting such unusual catch and decided - not unreasonably - that we were runaway criminals. I came to my senses just in time to hold a particularly absurd conversation with the local police constable for whom they had sent. Thankfully, I quickly managed to persuade him that there would be no use in arresting us only to let one of us die on him, and the constable settled for sending a messenger to Inspector Warner and taking us to my house in the police cab.

The handcuffs, which turned out to be standard police issue, he was able to unlock; when, some half an hour later, Bell finally regained consciousness, his hands were free.

He seemed, however, to be completely oblivious to the fact. If anything, he held onto my wrist so tightly one might’ve thought he wished the handcuffs were still there.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing he said. Then I wished the handcuffs were there, too, so that I might yank at them again.

“You’ll apologize for that nonsense later,” I snorted. “The only thing you have to be sorry for just now is the amount of water I got out of your lungs. I am very cross with you for nearly drowning.”

He fell silent for a while and allowed me to wrap him in blankets and bring him coffee. For that matter, I as well was cold and dripping wet, so I took the opportunity to make some coffee for myself, too, and settled beside him with my cup.

My housekeeper, blissfully unaware of all the drama that had taken place earlier that night, had made a fire in the hearth. It hissed slightly, golden and wonderfully hot.

“I am sorry,” he repeated quietly. “Not for that - no, for that, too - but that’s not the main thing. You might’ve noticed,” he smiled feebly, “I’m not getting any younger, Doyle. Nor any better at protecting you.”

I turned to him in incredulity, blinking.

“You’re not saying that was what all of that was about?”

His irritation - at his inability to help? His distress - for me?

My saving him was not what he hated, I realized. He hated for himself to be unable to save _me_.

“Nonsense,” I said, and tried unsuccessfully to swallow the lump that suddenly formed in my throat. “Nonsense.”

It was good to be free of the handcuffs, to not feel both unwanted and intruded upon. But I experienced, too, a strange feeling of regret at the loss of that closeness, that visceral understanding. I wasn’t quite sure how to let him know what I felt.

After a while I reached out and gently ran my fingers against his bruised wrist.


End file.
